Be positive in a positive way...

So most of you know that I decided to come home a week early. Just after I'd been gone for about two weeks everyone at home started sort of reaching their maximum limit. Lucy had to have a tooth pulled, all three kids sequentially got some sort of stomach bug - Dan's parents tenure was over and Dan had a 5 day stint on his own coordinating babysitters, school, activities - oh yeah and his job - until my mom was to arrive. I have to say Dan never once complained and when I suggested coming back early he really wanted me to feel free to not do that, but if I was to decide to come back early he would not try to stop me. It was an easy decision for me to make - I had originally made my plans around being at the shala for exactly one month, and this change would short me of six practices, which I felt fine about - but what I had a harder time letting go of was one more week of class with Jayashree and Nirasimhan. We attended class four times a week, and usually the first hour was with Jayashree chanting the Yoga Sutras and the second hour was discussion with Nirasimhan. Last week during class Nirasimhan in reference to one of the sutras said that as people learning and adjusting to the most positive aspects of what our society has to offer we should try to "be positive in a positive way". He said that in our hearts we know what is nurturing and healthy for us, and that moving in that direction is positive. What being positive in a positive way means is say for example you decide that you are going to try to get into shape, and that your goal is to run in Bloomsday, but you complain every day that you have to go out for your training run - you still do your run, and you still start to get into better shape, but the over-all impression experienced and imprinted on your body/mind is not positive in a positive way.

Later that day Dan sent me this quote from Melody Beattie:

"Your security doesn't come from trusting others. Your security comes from trusting and cherishing your own heart. Don't let life shut you down. Open your heart as often as you need, your heart can be trusted, don't doubt it. It will inevitably connect you to what is true."

Now you all know me well enough to know that I don't get into the new-agey-its-all-good-even-when-its-dysfunctional-yoga-bs and no one has ever accused me of being overly positive about anything. (In fact last night someone asked me what was my favorite thing and least favorite thing about India - and I totally drew a blank.) But this little bit of wisdom is starting to make a lot of sense to me. Especially as a mom, or a parent, I've learned that trusting intuition, or following my heart is everything. Making the decision to leave everyone and go to India for a month to experience first hand the total departure from my regular life, and total immersion into yoga WAS absolutely nurturing and healthy for me as a person, as a yoga student, and as a yoga studio owner AND making the choice to leave a week early was also absolutely nurturing and healthy for me as a person and a mom to get back here to my little family.

So what I didn't mention is that after catching my heels in urdvha danurasana that day as Sharath predicted, not the next day, but the day that was my last practice at the Shala, I was doing my primary series practice and had resigned myself that I wasn't going to be getting any intermediate series postures especially now since I was leaving early, and was totally okay with that, and putting even greater emphasis as I had been doing the whole trip on open up my back, continuing with my focus of offering my heart upward with every utkatasna, warrior, updog etc... So I did my back bends, and then my drop backs and as I was dropping back I was walking each time my hands closer to my feet hoping to be just that much more open for when Sharath dropped me back, and when I stood up the last time he was standing there and said, "you take pasasana?" And I'm like 'yeah right without you telling me I just thought I'd start intermediate today', and said"no", so he say's "you do pasasana", of course all primed and ready for the deepest backbending of my life and I've to do another asana - and so it goes right? So it is really through these asanas the physical experience of which allows us to play out our deepest inner battles. Sharath even said that in conference last week, how important asana is in the 8 limbs to purity the body/mind through activating the agni which burns, destroys toxins allowing the breath and blood to circulate through. For everyone, especially as we age this is an incredibly amazing tool. So next time you drag yourself out of bed to get down to the Shala at 6am know that you are doing something so positive, nurturing and healthy for yourself - and you can make it even more so by simply acknowledging that if only just in your head as you turn your alarm of and put your feet on the floor!

And also cross your fingers that we get Jayashree and Nirasimhan to Spokane on their next trip to the US!